Heralded reporter to lecture about civil rights cold cases

The lecture is one of several events in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences’ Civil Rights Commemorative series.

Jerry_Mitchell_sJerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter who helped bring murderous Klansman to justice, will present a lecture on civil rights cold cases on Thursday, April 18, 2013. The free, public event will be held 6:30-8 p.m. in the Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th St. South.

The lecture is one of several events in the UAB College of Arts and SciencesCivil Rights Commemorative series, as well as a part of the UAB and City of Birmingham partnership, 50 Years Forward, the ongoing 50th anniversary commemoration of the seminal events of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Mitchell is a journalist for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and his work is credited with the arrests of Byron De La Beckwith, for the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers; Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, for ordering the fatal firebombing of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer in 1966; Bobby Cherry, for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls; and Edgar Ray Killen, for helping organize the June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Mitchell has received many national awards including a prestigious MacArthur Genius Grant.

The event is sponsored by the Department of Government.